Charlotte Sun's "Feeling Fit" tab editor Karin Lillis and SCMG publishers have made it clear: In their shop, plagiarists get second and third chances. Three of their bylines (George, Marlow and Pierce) appear in this week's edition over their newest stories. Since OWW is occasionally accused of never saying anything nice, let the record show that we note, endorse and praise this accomplishment: "Nice work, ladies: You each wrote a story without plagiarizing." I'll be happy to repeat this every time it happens, so stay tuned. Despite the rehabilitation of three past plagiarists (Once again, "Good work, gals!"), the title of this post should be "Here We Go Again."
Anyone reading "Combating Peripheral Neuropathy" in today's paper will easily detect an extraordinary shift in the last four paragraphs. Pronoun errors suddenly evaporate, dangling modifiers disappear, subject-verb faults go away, and the section is punctuation perfect.
The local editor didn't correct any of the fundamental errors in the copy's main body, so it is safe to assume that detecting a style and focus shift would be too subtle and also escape notice. But the sudden improvement in the copy's quality is notable for another reason.
The notable reason is the paragraphs were written over a year ago by a different writer, polished by a different editor, and published in a different magazine. At "Feeling Fit," the plagiarism continues.
Today's appearance of this and several other local items riddled with typos, common syntax faults and basic grammatical errors suggests that at SCMG, the title of "editor" is a pay grade, not a job description that has anything to do with making copy meet basic FCAT standards.
Another article lets a chiropractor comment on diabetes. Chiro's do a woo thing called subluxation. Diabetes is a serious medical condition that calls for more than spinal manipulation. The green tea and cinnamon + alpha hydrox recipe that she recommends for diabetics is a well-known commercial supplement's formula that I'll bet my cracked neck she sells. The copy calls the chiro a doctor, which is grossly misleading.
ReplyDeleteThis says it in a nutshell, "the sudden improvement in the copy's quality is notable". Original works by good writers make the all the difference. Plagiarism is common practice nowadays. Thank you for shedding light on this issue.
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